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KELTON STEPANOWICH

“I am proud of the opportunity I am able to bring to members of the community with my films, by having local people work on a feature film.”

Being confident is necessary in Kelton’s chosen career. Film direction as a career is not for the faint-hearted. It starts with the financing, where you ask people to give you money to make art. Most times the art doesn’t appear. With Kelton, it does. His short movie, God’s Acre, the story of an older Aboriginal man being forced to adapt to a constantly changing world was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and won an AMPIA award. The story was powerfully and elegantly captured for the big screen. In the film industry, success follows success and Kelton is now working on his first full length movie, The Road Behind, with funding from Telefilm’s Micro-Budget production program.

Kelton is largely self-taught, and some of his early opportunities for film making came from the competitions arranged as part of the YMM Filmmakers Association. He tells stories about his community, and for the moment is only constrained by budget. God’s Acre was shot in under three days with a team of seven, an incredible feat when you see it on the screen. The Road Behind will also be locally filmed. Kelton sees this as being his breakout work. “I am proud of the opportunity I am able to bring to all the members of the community with my films, and to have local people work on a feature film which will take Canada by storm. Watch for it, The Road Behind – 2018.”

Born and raised in Janvier, Kelton is at the forefront of the exciting arts community in Fort McMurray and is bringing the community to the silver screen for the rest of Canada, and hopefully the world.

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